Iraq News (15 Apr)

The Good: British CBS journalist, Richard Butler, has been freed in Basra by Iraqi Security Forces. It's funny how the New York Times headline is "2 Journalist Freed" referring to the amnesty granted to terrorist photographer, Bilal Hussein. Silly New York Times, unlike the AP photographer, Richard Butler was never caught with IED-making materials, providing forged documents to insurgents, etc. I think the distinction is not subtle.

The Bad: Damn...a very violent last couple of days. A car bomb has killed dozens at a courthouse in Baquba. 12 Kurdish Peshmerga troops have been killed in Ninawa province (home of Mosul and center of much of the terrorist-style violence in northern Iraq). 2 US soldiers were killed by IEDs. The fraudulent Iraqi spokesman for Al-Qaeda, Al-Baghdadi, has called for Sunni Sahwa members to come back and embrace Al-Qaeda. Somehow I think that they won't fall for that one again.

The Ugly: Sadr has called for the 1,300 Iraqi Forces who got canned either for surrendering to the militia or being incompetent to be integrated back into the Iraqi Security Forces. It's a lose-lose situation, because if the Ministry of Defenese doesn't, they will simply be on the Mahdi Army payroll, and if they are re-integrated, there will be more militia infestation. Christian Science Monitor has an interesting article about dealing with the problem of Sadr. It involves a lot of service-providing an aid to counter the Hezbollah-style influence the Mahdi Army wields over Sadr City.

Manning a Sadr City checkpoint...dangerous business